Drafted by a committee of 19 (but sufficiently well edited to read as if it were written by a single author) this book provides a well-argued, detailed and wide-ranging analysis of the consequences of economic globalization (the term corporate globalization is also extensively used in the book) and an examination of alternatives and the action required to move towards those alternatives. It has succeeded brilliantly, and deserves very close study, whether or not you agree with the drafting committee's views.

This is no extremist anti-corporate, anti-capitalist text, although it does clearly come to the conclusion that the vector of economic globalisation that we are on is neither inevitable, desirable nor sustainable. It is notable for arguing at the level of underlying principles and their practical consequences - it makes explicit the assumptions underlying corporate globalisation and questions them. This, in itself, is a valuable service as so much of the 'debate' in the media proceeds on the basis of bald assertion of essentially fallacious economic dogma.

The report starts with a critique of 'corporate globalization'. The term itself is useful, because the term 'globalization' has become something of a 'Humpty-Dumpty' word ('when I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less'). 'Corporate globalization' describes a process driven and promoted by the large global corporations which, whatever its other consequences, gives primacy to the benefits that will flow to global business.

The critique identifies eight key features of corporate globalization:

1. 'Promotion of hypergrowth and unrestricted exploitation of environmental resources to fuel that growth
2. Privatization and commodification of public services and of remaining aspects of the global and community commons
3. Global cultural and economic homogenization and the intense promotion of consumerism
4. Integration and conversion of national economies, including some that were largely self-reliant, to environmentally and socially harmful export oriented production
5. Corporate deregulation and unrestricted movement of capital across borders
6. Dramatically increased corporate concentration
7. Dismantling of public health, social, and environmental programs already in place
8. Replacement of traditional powers of democratic nation-states and local communities by global corporate bureaucracies.'

It demonstrates each of these propositions and explores who are the beneficiaries of application of these policies. One of the complexities of trying to follow the arguments of the pro- and anti- globalisers is that both use statistics, both from apparently authoritative sources, that directly contradict each other. It is almost as if the two sides inhabit parallel universes that operate in different ways. Suffice it to say that the report puts forward convincing arguments in support of its case.

The critique proceeds to a devastating analysis of the impact of the World Bank, The IMF and the WTO, the three pillars of corporate globalisation, over the last four or five decades.

The report then argues ten principles for sustainable societies, as a basis for identifying ways of realising these principles in the subsequent chapters of the report. It argues that these principles 'seem to be the mirror opposites of the principles that drive the institutions of the corporate global economy.'.

One of the minor problems in the debate is that, whereas 'globalization' rolls easily off the tongue, 'the principle of subsidiarity' is neither easy to say nor obvious in its meaning. The report contains a chapter on the case for subsidiarity, and it is a strong one. The counter argument is almost entirely concerned with power. While there are many elements of conflict between corporate globalisation and the principle of subsidiarity - local control - they are not entirely antithetical. But the reach of the large corporates would unquestionably be reduced.

You may or may not agree with the arguments in this report, but they deserve serious attention. They are well and carefully argued, they represent (in fairly sophisticated terms) the views of a growing number of people around the world who believe that current beliefs and institutions serve them poorly, and they show those who wish to promote change a path for doing so.

This book is excellent for all those who think we can do better-that small farmers needn't be driven from the land, our water needn't be polluted, people need not go hungry while others are overfed genetically engineered chemically altered junk food, etc. It has great thinkers presenting clear, well thought out ideas about what's wrong and what we can do about it. It helps when getting in that classic argument of keynesianism/communism v. neoliberalism because it outlines the thrid alternative very well. I am a grad student and I used it for a paper i wrote recently refuting neoliberalism and it was very helpful. I highly recommend it! Also, look into Maria Mies. She is the anti-capitalist-patriarchy bomb, yo.

A friend of mine who is involved with Rabbi Michael Lerner's Tikkun Community movement recently gave me a copy of Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible. I'm not an expert in this field at all, but I found the book worthwhile and very accessible. (So accessible that I read the entire thing in a week!) The writers include Jerry Mander, David Korten, Lori Wallach, and many people working around the world in the anti-globalization movement.

What makes the book really important is the positive solutions and alternatives offered. The authors offer real ways to put into practice the Tikkun Community's first and second core principles (interdependence and ecological sanity, and a new bottom line in economic and social institutions).

I think other Tikkun readers, progressive-Democrats, Green party members, and thoughtful people everywhere---who want to see the world change from how it is now to how it could be---would want to read a book outlining specifics of how to create sustainable energy, transportation and food systems. And Alternatives to Economic Globalization does just that. I can't recommend this book enough (in fact I've already bought several copies to give to some of my friends).

My dad had this book at home and since we were living on the top floor I had endless opportunities to experiment and litter the neighbourhood with planes made from this book's design. An evergreen favourite is Sakoda's Origami Supersonic Jet.
The first part of the book consists of a superbly eclectic history of the paper airplane with many ideas that will lead may a child of any age into endless hours of dreamy fun.
I found this book again this year in a Seattle bookshop and it brought back many happy memories!

In a world of hi-technology, electronics, computers and robotics, it's amazing such a book is still in print. This book has been a great inspiration for me through the years as it has thought me alot, not only about folding paper airplanes. It teaches us all that though we may have super-computers today, it's the creativity that matters afterall, because the best idea could possibly be the simplest.

This was my firt paper airplane book and I have since bought quite a few. It is my favorite and I still refrence it for new ideas. Its designs are more varied than books with designs by just one author. The written portion is also very clever. It makes me hope for another Internations Paper Airplane Contest.

I had always wondered the strong cause that ordinary people felt whent hey demonstrated/ got injured and even died during the WTO conferences in Seattle, Italy and New York. That led me to this book, which contains research papers from 4-5 authors, mainly from the 3rd world.

I found it amazing to note how the Transnational Corporations (TNC) of the first-world, browbeat the third world in guise of opening up to competition from outside. Some important points:
- How gloabalization is changing the world's food patterns
- How huge corporations like Monsanto and Cargill have created huge monopolies, whereby they could hold the world population to ransom, a.k.a. the OPEC countries (who individually hardly yield as much power though).
- How in the guise of Intellectual Property Rights, huge corporations patent herbs, plants and crop types, which otherwise have been used in the third world for several hundreds of years.
- How lending institutions like IMF, WB control the destiny of so many poor nations in the world.
- How TNC-led globalization (and thereby greed) has supported tyranny and dictatoships in Africa and South America, and has resulted in the dealths of hundreds of thousands of people over several years.
- How many of the WTO countries, are so poor that they can't even afford to send their diplomats to discuss WTO issues. Also, they don't possess the legal talent by themselves, or hire talent from outside to fight for their cause. Several times they put signatures on documents, not knowing how exactly it would impact them.
- Perhaps the biggest fraud perpetrated by the first world is in the way resolutions are adopted "by consensus" - and NEVER put to vote. The first world has resources and techniques of setting up several working teams which discuss issues with the top 15-20 countries in the world, arrive at a conclusion, and present "the consensus".
- Also, important is the role of leading countries of the third world, like India, South Africa, Malaysia etc., who refused to be beated into submission. This, of course results in a lot of flak in the West-controlled press and television.
- How, even within any first world country, there is a north side and south side, where workers keep losing jobs to globalization. How this has resulted in falling incomes and standard sof living.
- I also agree to a large extent the conclusion reached by the books authors - that the almighty dollar should not drive globalization, but the culture, and life-styles of various countries should also play a huge part in determining global trade policies.

This book contains papers from several authors from different countries. They all explain the problems with the World Trade Organization, how it is essentially run by powerful companies interested in making a profit off the farmers of the third world. The best thing about this book is that it offers different perspectives, different solutions to the same problems. Everyone should read it because it is an excellent book and it covers topics that most of us are ignorant of, while the 75% of the world's population who are farmers are affected by the policies and injustice of this organization every day.

The book is a valuable guide to how humans can live, work, and play in forest ecosystems in a way that does not destroy forests. The authors have compiled a wide range of articles most of which were originally published by the Ecoforestry Institute in their Journal of Ecoforestry. The articles lay the philosophical base upon which ecoforestry is premised. Ecological forestry seems to be the solution to many of the environmental problems seen in forests and forestry today, a way to resolve many of the vexing issues of forestry. This book is a must read for all forest activists, foresters, academics, and people concerned with humans relationships with forests and nature.

Jim Otterstrom's review below prompted me to read this book. "We
are caught in a terrible dilemma," contributor David Korten
writes in this collection of 43 essays. "We have reached a point
in history where we must rethink the very nature of and meaning of
human progress" (p. 29). Reading the newspaper on any day
reveals the ever-increasing problems caused by the expansion of our
global economy: worldwide unemployment and poverty; homelessness;
global warming; air, soil, and water pollution; violence; political
chaos; a global monoculture "which is leveling both cultural and
biological diversity" (p. 317); the destruction of natural
resources; sprawling superstores that destroy communities; and "a
global sense of despair about the future" (p. 94). However, as
this long-overdue book makes clear, these are not simply unrelated
problems as the media would have us believe.

This book first
identifies "the global economy" and examines the effects of
globalization, and then offers strategies "required to assist a
transition toward a more viable, more satisfying, and incomparably
more sustainable world" (p. 392). Co-edited by Jerry Mander and
Edward Goldsmith, this collection includes contributions from Ralph
Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, Wendell Berry, Satish Kumar, and Jeanette
Armstrong, among others. It offers compelling evidence that we are
living in a "global factory" (p. 302)--a corporate state,
"which not only disregards local tastes and cultural differences,
but threatens to serve as a form of social control over attitudes,
expectations, and behavior of people all over the world"
(p. 300), and which defines education as job training, and success as
a high-paying job (p. 416).

In his essay, Satish Kumar observes that
with economic globalization, people have lost their dignity; they have
"become cogs in the machine, standing at the conveyor belt,
living in shanty towns, and depending on the mercy of their
bosses" (p. 420). He writes, "global economy drives people
toward high performance, high achievement, and high ambition for
materialistic success. This results in stress, loss of meaning, loss
of inner peace, loss of space for personal and family relationships,
and loss of spiritual life" (p. 421).

We are pieces of the
living, dreaming earth (p. 465), Jeanette Armstrong writes in another
favorite essay, sharing the world with "people without
hearts," who have "lost the capacity to experience the deep
generational bond to other humans and to their surroundings,"
"blind to self destruction, whose emotion is narrowly focused on
their individual sense of well-being without regard to the well-being
of others" (p. 467).

Economic globalization may seem
overwhelming while reading this book, but there are also strategies
here for local production, local consumption, reducing global trade,
and ensuring strong environmental standards (p. 91). The solution
begins with each of us, individually. Eat vegan. Buy organic. Walk
to work. Appreciate what is local. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Value
life. You will find words to live by here.

And for those of you who
do not understand why hundreds were shot with rubber bullets, pepper
sprayed, and arrested for nonviolent protest in the streets of
Seattle, November 30 through December 3, 1999, while corporate elites
met in secret behind police barricades and a 25-block no-protest zone,
consider this book required reading.

G. Merritt

A thorough roast of the Corporate State, the Global Economy, GATT, NAFTA, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, and our own ignorance to the consequences we will suffer at the hands of the New Fascism. This book is another formidable brick in the foundation of an emerging sub-culture that seeks a viable human future. The underlying message throughout these essays is that we either involve ourselves in our communities---strive toward local sustainability, nurture the ecology of our place, reject bureacratic centralization, be it governmental, or corporate---or we allow the environmental destruction, the social disintegration, and the bankrupt moralilty of the profit-driven limitless growth maniacs to reach its inevitable cancer-like conclusion. The authors here share an awareness that we might well be facing the end of democracy, unbearable degradation to the quality of our air, water, food, and lives, and ultimately the collapse of our entire civilization. But all is not Doom & Gloom! We are reminded that corporations only exist because we allow them to, legally and economically, and the politicians they own are, at his point, still elected by us. There is optimism that the rapidly growing numbers of the displaced, disenfranchised, and disenchanted will unify, informed and wisened by their loss, or love, of place, and their common experience outside the confines of ideology and education manipulated by corporate-owned media. We are also reminded that on a global scale, the grotesquely rich & economically powerful, are far in the minority, if we so choose, we the people, the vast majority, can still throw the bums out! This book should be required reading in all schools, but the fact that most educational institutions are increasingly influenced by the same narrow socio-political-economic interests makes this quite unlikely. If you're a homeschooler though, I highly recommend 'The Case Against The Global Economy' as part of your curriculum.

Jim Otterstrom

If you have wondered why people all over the world have taken to the streets to protest the World Bank, IMF, the WTO, and other agents of global capital get this book! This book is wonderfully written, with in-depth yet easy to understand essays written by people all around the world who have realized that globalization is not benefitting anyone but the rich! This book will open your eyes and provoke you to act. I recommed it whole heartedly. If you care about the environment, human rights, workers' rights, biodiversity, democracy and freedom READ THIS BOOK! You aren't going to get the truth from the corporate media.

Jerry Mander shows how TV is an integral part of late capitalism.Although it was invented in the 1920's,TV was not put to use until after 1945, to promote the consumer society with advertising and a materialistic lifestyle.Most critics of TV are concerned about program content, but Mander shows that TV by its very nature is detrimental to human well-being.Like modern society as a whole, TV creates artificial experience, causing people to lose touch with their own nature, their true needs, other people and the natural world.TV puts the viewer into a passive hypnotic state.Mander shows how TV implants images in our brain, even against our will.Although nothing on TV is really "real", it tricks our mind into thinking that the pictures portray reality.Negative behaviors such as fighting, killing,rage and hate are very suitable for TV, but gentleness, affection,caring and the like is boring on TV.Mander says you cannot make TV "better", it must be eliminated.This book deserves a wide audience, because Mander gets to the root of what is wrong with television.

Everyone should read this book. Even if you don't agree with the arguments or the presentation of the arguments, it is worth a read.

I first came across this book as a senior in high school (raised on TV) eleven years ago and read enough of it for the extra credit it represented. I also specifically remember thinking how absurd it all was at the time. I came across it again four years ago and haven't viewed much television since.

The main idea I came away with was how telelvision is essentially an advertsing medium designed to bring across the narrowest view to the most amount of people. The advertsing dictates the content and not vice versa. The Super Bowl is the most obvious example. The commercials are the real show and the game itself is secondary. It is the same with other shows, such as Friends, ER etc, but just subtle. Mr. Mander also explains how even nature shows on PBS are the worst example of television, regulate the experience to the subjective view of a camera lens and high production values.

Mr. Mander also agrues that going to the movies is acceptable because your eyes are able to look all over the whole screen and the movies are experience by a group off people at the same time.

This book is an eye opener and must addition to every personal library (and public library for that matter).

I have read a bunch of other reviews on this site & I cannot add much. "Four Arguments" is simply excellent and fascinating. Get it. Read it. Buy a copy for each of your friends. It has totally changed the way I view and think about television. Check out his other books: "The Case Against the Global Economy" (a collection of essays by Mander & other great writers and thinkers) and "In the Absense of the Sacred." Both are very, very good. And while you're at it, get yourself a copy of E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful." Look for books by people like Jeremy Rifkin & Kirkpatrick Sale too. If we want a better, saner world we have to begin by educating ourselves. We must train our minds to look beyond the hype and BS. The truth is out there...

This book should be required reading for every American. This book will take years of corporate and government brain-washing out of your newly enlightened skull. The next time our president calls another nation "evil", you may want to take a good look at our nation's past, present, and possible future. Mander describes Indian cultures that base current decisions on how they will effect childred 7 generations from now. Imagine our short sighted, consumption driven society, even attempting this. The book confirms what I already feel, that unless society changes the way we live and view the natural world, our future is grim. The Indians see the errors in our ways. They know our fate. The question is if we will listen to them in time to save our greedy little selves.

...

The picture Mander paints has a vast, web-like look andfeel to
it, extending from the vastness of the Canadian Northwest Territories,
into the boardrooms of the major oil conglomerates, the programming
chambers of the television studios, the daily lives of
once-free-roaming, nomadic Indian cultures, governmental "Think
Chambers", the back rooms where the exploitation of the moon and
the possible resources of Mars is being planned, and of course, the
burgeoning internet about which many have scarecly a clue as to its
worst and greatest potentials. And, surprisingly, your
bedroom. Highlighting several points won't get the point of the book
across because on any one of them, the reader of this review could
say, "Well, that one doesn't much bother me." or "Well,
I can't do much about that." or "Gee, that's too bad for
those poor indians, but what could I possibly do to change that? I
have so much going on already.", and the important message of the
book would be completely overlooked. ("Well, what's the
point?" you might be asking. Please forgive me. I swore not to
spoonfeed the answers.)

I strongly suggest that you -do not- read
this book if you are living a comfortable lifestyle, or at least hope
to live one. There's no point in upsetting yourself if you're not
willing to be different in order to make a difference in the future of
the world. We might want to be different, or imagine we would be
different if we were certain it would help things, but what this book
speaks of isn't on the level of 'conspiracy theory', it's about what
is actually happening right now...

Again, it doesn't pin down any
one thing. It pulls in everything starting with the most basic
elements: lack of truth in advertising; exploitation of humans as
consumer addicts; corporations as -real entities-, composed of people,
that share a single-pointed focus on accomplishing a -central aim-
(and not necessarily their stated one) at all costs; and many other
elements that add up to a "web" that we humans have
unwittingly become tangled in. The web tangles those who know about
it, and those who don't know about it equally, but the one's who think
they know about it sometimes imagine that they are better off than
those who don't know about it. So, what does one do? The book
addresses this question.

This reviewer believes that any attempt to
diminish the ideas in the book by associating them with some existing
philosopy such as Neo-Ludditism (broadly : a philosophy of being
opposed to technological change) would be a misdirection. The
underlying motivation behind this book is not to increase paranoia and
resistance for resistance's sake, but to introduce the = reader, to as
full of an extent as possible, to the conditions and circumstances
under which she currently lives and must become aware of if any
lasting change is to be possible.

This book is a 'MUST READ' for those interested in Environmental Issues, Technology, Indigenous Peoples, the True Intentions of Corporations & Governments (particularly the US Govt) & General Spirituality - and the connections between each of these.

Whether you agree of disagree, this book will SHOCK you out of your HAZE of day to day life. Thereafter you will hopefully begin the process of waking up to the truth of our existence. This is the effect it's had on me.

A brilliant account of our era - step out of your 'life' for a few hours and take a look in!

What you see may anger and disillusion you, but i feel much of it is the truth and ultimately only the truth will set you on the right course and let you be you free.